My most recent posts have followed a similar pattern. Family, craftiness, drawings. And eeeep, that makes me so happy! I don’t know if I can keep it up but I can hope.

Here’s one of the recent things I finished, another umbilical cord hat (from Stitch N’ Bitch). I seriously love these things for new babies.

Though I love this pattern, I may have found a replacement hat. I say may because the new hat fits Nathan now, so it’s not for tiny babies. And though I like it, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I’ll share in a few days when the next cycle of my “pattern” of posting comes along.

Baby hats!!

For baby heads! Well, actually for one cute little baby head in particular, little Elliora.

The top one is a Stella pixie hat. You can find the pattern on Ravelry. The bottom one is an umbilical cord hat, my favorite baby hat pattern, from Stitch ‘N Bitch. In fact, I think I’m going to make another umbilical cord hat this weekend for Alan’s cousin’s new baby.

The focus on the bottom photo is off. Boo. That’s what happens when I rush to take pictures before sending them out. That is also the reason I only have these two photos of these two hats. I would have liked to take a photo of Nathan wearing the little pink hat. But rushing. I also forgot to write Bethany a note along with the package saying that both of the hats are machine washable. Did I ever email that to her?

Life of a distracted mom.

Update: Bethany said I could use her picture. Thank you!

I finished knitting a blanket for Nathan!! It isn’t blocked. But I don’t think I’m going to bother doing that. We’re too busy using it.

And doesn’t Nathan look sweet under there. No redness on his face? Well his face cleared up. But these are old pictures. One morning we woke up and it was all red and angry looking again.

And like my new banner? No one will get it except for Alan. I’ll explain some other time, too busy coughing.

Project Notes
Pattern: Personalized Baby Blanket from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease
Needle size: US 7 / 4.5 mm

So, that’s why you’ve been stuck looking at that picture for days. I haven’t been up to editing any new pictures. I’d pop onto the computer a little here and there to draw quick little things for my “I heart” section and to check my email but mostly I’ve been missing.

I’ve been taking care of sick babies. Isabelle is like her usual self except with a runny nose that needs to be wiped quite constantly if it’s not sucked. Do you know what I’m talking about those nose sucker things? We have a Japanese one with a straw thing and it’s the grossest thing ever but it works.

And Nathan hasn’t been sleeping properly at night. He tosses and turns and wakes up at some crazy hour in the morning whining and crying which wakes Isabelle up. He’s been doing this for the past 2 or 3 days. And on top of that he has a diaper rash, his first. So, I’ve been taking care of them, nursing my head (a headache everyday now for 3 days. Hmmm wonder if it’s due to the lack of sleep) and knitting Nathan’s blanket when I can grab a spare moment.

Ok why the hell am I still awake?! I should be sleeping! I haven’t stayed up this late in a month or something. Off to bed I go.

But I thought I’d take advantage of his absence of clothing to take some pictures.

And then I thought, oh let me stick the hat, I made him, on his head. Ack I could just eat him up!

Yes, I knit him a hat. I scoured the internet and my books to find a baby hat I’d like to make. And after a long search, I went back to the umbilical hat from Stitch N’ Bitch. It’s such an easy project. And I didn’t even need to buy new yarn. I just used the leftover yarn from the crochet panda.

Yay for quick simple projects that can be made from my stash!

And that is why I haven’t finished fixing my cow shirt. Or why I haven’t finished with this knitted flower:

What? You say, you don’t see a knitted flower? Well that’s because Isabelle is wearing it around her neck. It’s the big collar looking pink thing. Isabelle calls it her flower necklace. I knit it up while skyping with my sister. Video chat is so cool. She was stuck on the pattern and needed my help so we just skyped each other.

And now I’m too tired to finish it. Or I should say, I’m too tired to look for a knitting needle to finish it. I could sit there on the couch all day but getting up to look for something? Wears me out just thinking about it.

Oh, and I just found out, it makes a nice crown too.

Though for the life of me I couldn’t get Isabelle to take a serious picture.

I was pretty much successful with handmade for Christmas. Well mostly. Sure my snow globes didn’t turn out as expected and I really didn’t have time to make more. But I did manage to make gingerbread cookies for all the kids.

But not only that, I knit matching hats for Alan and Isabelle!

Well truthfully it was a mistake. I hadn’t planned on making two hats. I was only going to knit a hat for Alan. The problem was, not picking up knitting in a year has made me rusty. So the first hat turned out a mess. Halfway through knitting it, I noticed there was a hole. I must have done a yarn over or something which meant the decreasing part didn’t work out correctly. I should have just gone backwards and fixed it but I didn’t. And my knitting tension was a little wacky, you can tell in the pictures. So I HAD to knit another one.

And with time running out, because you know that’s how I do things, I had to knit when Alan was home. I told him I was knitting a hat for Isabelle. So when I was done, I had two hats.

On Christmas morning, Alan opened a present that wasn’t any surprise at all, two matching hats, one for baby and one for daddy.

But now that Christmas is past, I can frog the first one and reknit it. I can’t decide if I want to make the child size instead this time. I sort of like how it’s too big and sticks up. It makes me think of a little acorn. Or maybe I shouldn’t pull it at all and keep it as a memory.

Project Notes
Pattern: His Hat, a great easy pattern by Marnie Maclean
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride bulky? worsted? I don’t know, I lost the label ages ago
Size: Adult

Oh and speaking of Christmas gifts, look at what Isabelle got from her Auntie Jo and Uncle Dennis.

Isabelle says this is a drawing of me. And here’s a drawing of me and her. Isn’t a drawing by Isabelle a great handmade Christmas present?

And this is a great present too, a little dance on Christmas:

I tried to get Isabelle to model it for me. I thought she’d be accommodating seeing she was running around with a hat on. But she would not cooperate. She was too busy checking to see if she’d hit puberty yet.

So I had to wear it. Sheesh it was hard for me to take a picture in the mirror. I obviously have no concept of where my camera is pointing when I’m not looking through the viewfinder. It took about 20 shots to get one that I was happy with.

Ok off to finish drawing my daily comic.

I wish I had posted regularly, saving those cherished little moments here to read later. But now they are lost, casualties of my crap memory. I’ve been going through the pictures trying to remember those little tiny things but most of them are gone. For example looking at this picture, all I can think of is peppermint chocolates.

That’s right. Peppermint chocolates. This was taken at a friend’s party. Isabelle hadn’t eaten much if any real food. Towards the end of the night she saw me eating a yummy piece of peppermint chocolate. She tried a piece and LOVED it. She kept dragging me back to the room, saying “more”, and eating piece after piece.

Oh and this scarf. I made it ages ago, before Isabelle was even born. I didn’t even realize I had it. Have I ever taken a picture of it? It was one of my early knitting projects, a keyhole scarf. I remember I wanted to do the whole thing in a seed stitch but the going was slow so I changed to a rib stitch. Well anyhoo, one night we went to watch a drive in movie, we all dressed up warm, and I just grabbed a scarf for Isabelle, this scarf. It’s now her favorite accessory. She loves it. At the party, she did not want to take it off for the longest time.

Ok more posts to come and hoping to catch up with everyone soon. Right now I’m missing the movie we rented.